COLLEGE NEWS

Consulting Service for Small Businesses Opens

The Small Business Development Center at Mt. San Antonio College held its official grand opening Friday with help from representatives of the California Department of Commerce and local city, education and business leaders.

The center will offer free consulting and general information to east Los Angeles County entrepreneurs on such matters as marketing, accounting, personnel and licensing.

The center's director, Toni Valdez, has been a business management and marketing instructor at Mt. SAC in Walnut for four years. She is a partner in a small business, a Honolulu company that makes home-sewing patterns.

The center was established with the help of a $141,700 grant from the chancellor's office of the state community college system and the state Commerce Department. The grant is renewable annually.

The goal of the center, at 363 S. Park Ave. in Pomona, is to provide to small businesses, free-of-charge, the type of consulting advice that larger firms can afford to pay for.

"Small business is a very large part of the business community," Valdez said. "It's to the community's benefit for small businesses to be profitable."